Saturday, August 07, 2010

Cardinal Newman on Anglicanism

So what did Newman think of Anglicanism?

(Difficulties of Anglicans, lecture 4): “You can have no trust in the Establishment or its Sacraments and ordinances. You must leave it, you must secede; you must turn your back upon, you must renounce, what has—not suddenly become, but has now been proved to you to have ever been—an imposture. You must take up your cross and you must go hence.”

(Difficulties of Anglicans, lecture 1): “the Established Church has no claims whatever on us, whether in memory or in hope … they only have claims upon our commiseration and our charity whom she holds in bondage, separated from that faith and that Church in which alone is salvation. If I can do aught towards breaking their chains, and bringing them into the Truth, it will be an act of love towards their souls, and of piety towards God.”

courtesy Dr Oddie
Trouble with old JHN is having researched a subject thoroughly, he came to certain convictions and fearlessly taught them. A bit like Pope Benedict really.

He did not think much of the ultramontanists either - "the aggressive and insolent faction which caused the hearts of the faithful to mourn".

Indeed he always said what he thought, like when he said in the C of E he disliked the religion but not the people and in the Catholic Church he liked the religion and not the people. He certainly caused offence.

He may not have liked the ultramontanists of his day much, but it's because he thought they deformed the teaching on the pope. He himself is probably best labeled, as Sheridan Gilley put it, an ultramontanist sui generis.

Thank you Dave Deavel, I would agree entirely with your first sentence. Indeed Pius IX in declaring Himself the sole witness of tradition as a private theologian certainly deformed the teaching on the Pope.Bishop Butler mentions this in his book on Vatican I.

Where please did Sheridan say that Newman was best labeled as an ultramontanist sui generis? I wonder what he meant by it.

Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia, et ubi ecclesia vita eterna

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